Welcome back to another edition of Adam's Reviews!! **queue in intro music**
Today's movie review is the biographical feel good drama Music of the Heart (1999) where the queen herself Meryl Streep plays real life music teacher Roberta Gaspari. Roberta is a single mother of two who moves to the problem-ridden neighborhood of East Harlem as she needs a job and wants to give young kids in the school and community hope through violin. At the start we see her obstacles whether it be her early years fighting through office politics or her yearning to be with a man who is 100% committed to a relationship. After ten years of teaching, the school decides to cancel her class due to cuts around funding. With the support of her friends, her past students and the community, Roberta arranges a fundraiser concert in order to save the program and help ensure its survival for the next several years.
The movie at the start felt very soapy like your mid-afternoon television movies, however Streep does well to navigate this into a drama film. The story of this lady is inspirational and outlines racial tensions, how music can be understood by all people regardless of their physical condition and unifies a community. Surprisingly this film was directed by horror kind director Wes Craven - he does really well with the flow of the story and capturing the impacts the violin classes have on the children, parents and Roberta. Craven does well to pick up the important scenes including how a teacher needs to handle young students who challenge her authority through tough love, discipline and the sheer force of her own determination. And you start seeing how the kids slowly change either from building self-confidence and slowly winning the respect of their skeptical parents. Streep does well to also highlight her character's insecurity and vulnerability around the loss she experienced. The transformation from that vulnerable character to a person who finds her inner strength to push on and work on with her life was great to see. The violin scene throughout in the movie from the practices in class to the epic concert at Carnegie Hall looked real and natural.
Bonus for you movie goers who like to watch the end credits for every movie - there will be a soundtrack treat for you N*Sync and Gloria Estefan fans, just listen to the credits😉. Overall, the flick is a feel-good story and great to see how people can make a difference to help out the children and the community - 6.7/10
Today's movie review is the biographical feel good drama Music of the Heart (1999) where the queen herself Meryl Streep plays real life music teacher Roberta Gaspari. Roberta is a single mother of two who moves to the problem-ridden neighborhood of East Harlem as she needs a job and wants to give young kids in the school and community hope through violin. At the start we see her obstacles whether it be her early years fighting through office politics or her yearning to be with a man who is 100% committed to a relationship. After ten years of teaching, the school decides to cancel her class due to cuts around funding. With the support of her friends, her past students and the community, Roberta arranges a fundraiser concert in order to save the program and help ensure its survival for the next several years.
The movie at the start felt very soapy like your mid-afternoon television movies, however Streep does well to navigate this into a drama film. The story of this lady is inspirational and outlines racial tensions, how music can be understood by all people regardless of their physical condition and unifies a community. Surprisingly this film was directed by horror kind director Wes Craven - he does really well with the flow of the story and capturing the impacts the violin classes have on the children, parents and Roberta. Craven does well to pick up the important scenes including how a teacher needs to handle young students who challenge her authority through tough love, discipline and the sheer force of her own determination. And you start seeing how the kids slowly change either from building self-confidence and slowly winning the respect of their skeptical parents. Streep does well to also highlight her character's insecurity and vulnerability around the loss she experienced. The transformation from that vulnerable character to a person who finds her inner strength to push on and work on with her life was great to see. The violin scene throughout in the movie from the practices in class to the epic concert at Carnegie Hall looked real and natural.
Bonus for you movie goers who like to watch the end credits for every movie - there will be a soundtrack treat for you N*Sync and Gloria Estefan fans, just listen to the credits😉. Overall, the flick is a feel-good story and great to see how people can make a difference to help out the children and the community - 6.7/10